


Home is Where the Symbiotes Live

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alien Babies (eventually), Alien Biology, Blowjobs, Dom/sub, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Genderless Venom, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Romantic Comedy, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Switching, Threesome, eventual OT4 - Freeform, no cats were harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2019-08-03 14:46:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: Sometimes, ‘family’ means one man, one woman, one insufferably nice ex, one alien totally-not-a-parasite and one very tasty-smelling cat.Life’s pretty good for Eddie Brock. He defeated the evil aliens and lived to tell the tale. He won back his girlfriend, the Investigative Vigilante business is booming, and his totally-not-a-parasite is, for the most part, doing what it’s told.There are niggles, of course. For a start, Venom wants to be the third wheel on his and Anne’s Reliant Robin. This would all be so much easier if Eddie wanted to say no.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Thank you for checking out this fic! Prepare yourself for rampant switching, everyone getting the chance to bottom (I am a Firm Believer in equality) and expressions of my deep love for Anne Weying.**

_**I want to be inside her, Eddie.** _

“'Scuse me?”

 

 

Anne putters around their new apartment, shooing Mr Belvedere from under her feet. She gets ready for work in her usual haphazard fashion (bathroom, brush teeth; bedroom, fuss over wrinkled blouse; bathroom, comb hair, still fussing; bedroom, apply makeup, step into heels; bathroom, last pit-stop before facing the morning).

Eddie listens to her trot back and forth, accompanied by the groan of the dustcart as it struggles up the steep street below. With two incomes to their name they can afford somewhere with such luxuries as dividing walls and a breakfast bar. It’s at this that Eddie sits, sipping a glass of off-brand Orange Miscellaneous from Ms Chen’s store that will, according to Dan (who still pops by every now and then, bringing wistful looks but no hard feelings, promise) give him diabetes, cancer, or both.

On these occasions, Eddie reminds Dan that he’s fused to an alien symbiote. Frankly, the Orange Miscellaneous can take its best shot.

 

 

 _ **I want to be inside her,**  _says the alien symbiote in question, _**when we fuck.**_

“That’s the general idea.”

_**You aren't understanding. I want to be with her.** _

“Body and soul, bud.”

 

 

Eddie rolls Orange Miscellaneous round his mouth. Once you’ve sucked away the sweetness, it tastes kinda sulfuric, like those preserved apricots he used to love as a kid.

Mr Belvedere wanders past, having tired of his attempts to commit kitty-suicide by diving beneath Anne’s stilettos. Eddie takes another gulp of Orange Miscellaneous and imagines how much better fresh cat-meat would taste.

 

 

There’s a sigh from somewhere inside him. _**As in, I want** **you** **to fuck** **me** **, Eddie.**_

 

 

Mr Belvedere treats him to his customary morning hiss, the dustbins clatter outside, and Eddie Brock spits out his drink.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

It’s still kinda weird hearing the symbiote say that word. _Fuck._ All full-throated and rumbly like an idling motorbike.

This is mostly because Venom only learned the meaning of _fuck_ a month ago.

Here’s how it went down.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Scene: nine pm, Friday evening, post date-night.

By now, the two of them have fallen back into old routines. It’s as if that whole year - the LIFE Foundation, Carlton Drake, hacked computers, poor Doctor Skirth, symbiotes and skin-suits and one rather mortifying episode involving a lobster that still has Eddie on the Banned Persons’ lists of all the fancier restaurants in midtown - has been snipped out and discarded. Like it never happened.

 

 

_**You want me to what?** _

Okay, so perhaps _some_ of that year stayed with them.

 

 

“Get out of me,” says Eddie, patiently. “Just for an hour. I’ll be back before you suffocate, promise.”

_**The last time I left you, I had to hitch a ride in a chihuahua.** _

Ah. Venom’s not gonna make this easy. Eddie grimaces. “I know. And I’ve said sorry for that. Repeatedly.”

_**I acquire a fraction of the traits and knowledge of whomever I possess.** _

“I _know_.”

_**I sniffed another dog’s backside, Eddie.** _

 

 

That’s some mood-killer. Until he barged into the bathroom with the intent of evicting his lodger, Eddie had been light-headed and fizzly from the kiss. This kiss wasn’t his and Anne’s first since they decided to try making things official again, but it had been by far the steamiest.

(This is, of course, discounting the snog Venom initiated in the middle of the LIFE facility’s forest. Eddie does his best not to think about that - or, for that matter, how much he enjoyed it.)

 

 

But anyway. Anne. Groping his muscular shoulders like she can’t get enough of them, winding herself ivy-tight around him, panting hotly as she sucks on his tongue…

Eddie wants to get back to that, pronto.

 

 

A stripe of lipstick clings to his stubble. It’s sensible red, lawyer red, a subtle promise of sex. His blood’s headed down-south, and every second wasted here is another second he’s not in Annie.

 

 

“I _said_ I’m sorry.”

Venom huffs. _**It was not a pleasant experience.**_

“You can’t blame me for that! I thought you were eating me. Hell, you _were_ eating me.”

_**I** _ **told** _**you I was dealing with it. Just had to make you crave the right proportions of living protein so I didn’t need to take sustenance from your organs.** _

“And, what? I was supposed to trust the crazy alien voice in my head?”

 ** _Yes_ , **says Venom. It sounds offended that Eddie would ever think otherwise.

 

 

Eddie tears off two squares of triple-ply. He dampens them in the sink and scrubs the lipstick away.

 

 

“Look, buddy,” he says, meeting his own eyes in the mirror. They glaze over, white and sticky-looking, like PVA glue. “No chihuahuas this time. Promise. Just hop out of me for an hour. I’ll be back before you know it. Think of it as a favour. Man to man, brother to brother.”

Those slimy eyes narrow. **_I am not a man_.**

“Sure.” Eddie fastballs the paper into the pan, flushes. “Genderless alien goo. Whatever.”

_**I am not your brother either, Eddie.** _

“And here was me thinking we were getting along...”

 _ **We. Are.**_ **One** ** _!_  **Its voice amplifies, ringing so loud that Eddie has to clutch the cistern to stay upright. _**You, me... We.**_

 

 

Eddie’s grin looks all kinds of ghastly, paired with those alien eyes. “Sure are! _Except_ when it comes to boning my soon-to-be wife. Then it’s you and me, _separately,_ and the ‘me’ is the one doing the boning. Deal?”

Venom snorts. _**It is not a deal unless I get something out of it.**_

 

 

“Eddie?” Anne doesn’t bother disguising her impatience. She knows how much he likes to picture her waiting for him, her hand rolling slow and sweet between her thighs. “You coming?”

 

 

Eddie swears his cock rises in time with his pulse. He burns with it: desire, love, all those things that Venom will never understand.

 _ **I understand perfectly**. **You need her.** **We**_ ** _need her._  **Venom heaves a sigh. _**She’s beautiful.**_

“You don’t have any concept of ‘beautiful’. Comes with the territory of being genderless alien goo.”

Those white eyes curve upwards, smug as a cat’s. _**I am** **your** **genderless alien goo, Eddie. It was after bonding with you that I could gaze out across your city and see a world worth saving, and…**_  It pauses for dramatic effect. _**A woman worth that world and more.**_

Eddie takes control of his eyes back for long enough to roll them. “God, you’re such a sap. You really weren’t lying about being a loser.”

_**Takes one to know one.** _

“Oh, you did _not_ just playground-comeback me!”

 

 

“Eddie,” Anne calls. “Is this your way of telling me you want to jerk it in the bathroom? Because I’ve got a bullet in my sock drawer, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Right. They’re not here to banter. Eddie adjusts his belt, glaring at himself in the mirror. This right now is business.

 

 

“You said you wanted something out of this deal,” he says, bracing his palms on either side of the basin. “So talk. I want an hour to fuck my fiancée without hearing your ongoing commentary. What do _you_ want?”

 ** _Simple_. ** Venom sounds pleased with itself. _**A** **sk Annie if I am allowed to join in.**_

 

 

There have been many times in Eddie’s life where he hears something so shocking, so awful, that he forgets how to speak. He’s a reporter, though. Those times rarely last long.

 

 

“You _what_ now?”

_**Let me join you.** _

“In… in _bed?_ ”

Venom shrugs. Seeing as it’s currently twined around Eddie’s organs, this is rather unsettling. _**The location hardly matters. You have this one particularly vivid memory of lifting her onto the kitchen counter in your old apartment and -**_

Eddie holds up both hands. “Buddy,” he manages, head still spinning. “ _Buddy_. That’s private, okay?”

_**You and me are ‘we’. There is no such thing as** **privacy.** _

“No, you’re just nosy! Look, dude, it’s not happening. And - and it’s all well and good you wanting to know whether _Anne’d_ be cool with it! What if _I’m_ not cool with it, huh?”

 

 

“Not cool with what?” yells Anne.

“Tell you later!” Eddie squares up to the mirror. He looks himself in the shiny, lidless eyes. “Look, Venom. Buddy. Pal. I say this with the utmost love, you know I do - but no. _N-O_. Simple as that.”

 

 

Silence. Eddie groans.

 

 

“Don’t tell me you’re pouting.”

_**I do not pout.** _

“Sure you don’t.”

_**My fangs are too numerous; they do not allow it.** _

“Mm-hm. Alright, have we got this sorted out? One day, you’ll find yourself a nice goo-wife. You’ll settle down, have two-point-three goo-kids. I’ll be your best man, yeah? I mean, I’ve got a goldmine of anecdotes. They mostly involve you biting off people’s heads without my permission, but to be honest, your kind would probably find that amusing.”

 

 

There’s a ripple under Eddie’s skin. Next moment Venom’s _there,_ bobbing above his shoulder like some sort of mutated parrot.

 

 

 ** _My species reproduce asexually,_  **it says. It sounds worryingly sincere.   _ **We do not mate, and even if we did, even if I was not a traitor despised by the rest of my race, I would not wish to copulate with my own kind.**_ Warmth nuzzles low in Eddie’s chest. _**Want you. Want her. Want** **us.**_

Oh. Eddie swallows. That was a touch more heartfelt than he expected.

“Those’re my feelings you’re picking up on,” he tries to reason. “My desires. Not your own.”

 

 

Anger. A sharp frisson of it, stabbing out from his spine. _**Not a parasite, Eddie.**_

 

 

“I know, I know.” Venom is so much more. Eddie sucks his teeth. “Look,” he says, slowly. “I’ll ask, okay? No promises. Because even on the off-chance - the very, _very_ slim off-chance that she’s into this? I’m still a lil’ pissed that you never asked what _I_ think.”

Another of those internal shrugs. _**I do not need to.**_

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

**_I’m in your head. I already know_.**

 

 

Is it saying what he thinks it’s saying? Surely not. It can’t be - firstly, because _no,_ secondly, because _ew,_ thirdly, because… _No._

 

 

 _ **You can lie to yourself,**_ grumbles Venom. _**But you can’t lie to me.**_

 

It’s out of him before Eddie can rustle up a response, slithering from his chest with a noise not unlike a plunger being extracted from a blocked-up toilet ( _ **Rude, Eddie**_ ). It pools in the sink, oil-slick black, a turbulent sea tugged by miniature tides. Eddie gets the distinct impression that it’s glaring.

“ **One hour,”** it says, in its own voice, out loud. The squeak from the other room indicates that Anne just jumped hard enough to knock a pillow off the bed. It will have ruined the seductive picture she’s constructed to greet him once he walks out the bathroom.

 

 

Never does anything by halves, does their Anne. That’s another thing they love about her.

 

 

 _He._ Another thing _he_ loves about her.

Dammit.

 

 

“I’ll be back soon,” croaks Eddie.

“ **Or I eat Mr Belvedere.”**

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Eddie runs a hand through his hair, forcing himself to calm down, to focus on the here and now. Venom’s being an ass, that’s all. It’s not like Anne will ever agree to this. So, why worry?

 

 

He flashes Venom a grin, cockiness returning, and shuts the bathroom door behind him.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Anne recovers her pillow. She plumps it with the most adorable furrow between her brows, as if she’s disappointed by its betrayal.

Eddie doesn’t mention this, mostly because he doesn’t want it thrown at him.

 

 

Looking at her sends his senses haywire. He can smell her shampoo - something fruity, citrus. Can imagine how her breasts would weigh so perfectly in his hands, on his stubbled cheek. How he’d push her bra strap to match the one already dangling off one freckled shoulder...

“Annie,” he breathes.

 

 

Anne glances up. A lock falls from behind her ear. It’s the color of sunshine, of all the things good in the world. “Did I hear him threaten to eat my cat?”

Eddie winces. “I… won’t let that happen. And, uh. Just so you know. Venom’s an it, not a him. Gets pretty touchy about that.”

Anne tries not to smile, but one corner of her mouth keeps doing its best. “Genderless goo-pride and all that.”

“Mm-hm.”

“You _promise_ you won’t let it eat my cat?”

Eddie presses a hand to his chest. “Heart crossed, ma’am.”

“My hero.”

 

 

Fuck, she’s beautiful. After all this time, Eddie still gets moments like these, moments where he has to stop and wait for reality to catch him up. Moments where he’s convinced this must be heaven - that, or one hell of an acid trip.

He did the impossible, you see. He survived the battle against Riot. And, more importantly, he got his Annie back. He gets to touch her, be with her, be hers again.

 

 

It’s too... neat.

 

 

Eddie’s mind is as chewed up and cynical as that of anyone who navigates the big business underworld. Real life doesn’t have happy endings, not unless you’re rich enough to buy one. So why the hell does he get to ride away on his Ducati, his girl in his arms, off into the ruddy-red San Fran sunset?

He cost Anne everything. Her job, her reputation as a cutthroat big-city lawyer, very almost her life. It seems unjust that he’s not being punished.

Still, Eddie’s too selfish to let Anne go out of some sense of cosmic karma. He’d rather listen to one of Ms Chen’s meditation CDs.

 

 

He’s waiting for something, he realizes, as he crawls onto the bed beside her and tucks that blonde strand back where it belongs. He’s waiting for the voice in his head to tell him to get on with it and kiss her already.

He’s waiting for Venom.

 

 

That voice never comes, because Venom is busy not-pouting in the sink. Eddie doesn’t know what he feels about that.

 

 

Annie scoots in. Her chest flattens against his, plush and warm. Her red, red mouth glances off Eddie’s cheek, his jaw, the lobe of his ear.

“You realize I could hear every word of that conversation?” she asks. She closes her teeth on it and tugs, light enough to tease. “Your half, anyway.”

 

 

Eddie’s hands drift to their favorite places in the world: one on the curve of her lower back, the other stroking the swell of her thigh. Fine blonde hairs tickle his palm.

“Sorry,” he says. “I told it that this wasn’t. Y’know. Appropriate.”

“Shame.”

“Shame?”

 

 

She smiles then, a hard press of teeth against his pulse. Eddie recalls that brisk evening after all the madness, when two of them sat in a crusty downtown doorway, sharing a cigarette and reminiscing on what it meant to be powerful, to be a part of something so much greater than themselves. A part of _Venom._

He remembers the shine in Anne’s eyes. Right now, they have that same greedy glint.

 

 

“I’m down for it if you are,” she says, and from behind the bathroom door comes a grouchy “ **Told you so.”**

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

This is how it goes.

 

 

Eddie, Venom. Together, joined.

 

 

And Anne too, as much a part of them as she can ever be. She shakes on the bed, gasping, arching, as Venom, at Eddie’s direction, extracts a slim black tendril from his lower belly and brushes feather-light round her clit.

“Oh - oh, _fuck,_ oh, _Eddie…”_

 

 

Eddie hears himself growl. It comes out a whole octave lower than usual and Anne’s legs jerk like he’s touched her with a live wire.

There’s significant danger of kneeing. She always bucks like a wild thing once she’s passed her third orgasm of the night. She gets real twitchy, over-sensitive and aching, though she won’t say _stop_ until she’s sobbing from it.

 

 

Eddie waits for that moment, watching her, reading her body, ready to pull away. They’re almost there when something changes.

Something new.

 

 

Anne’s eyes pop open and her pupils blow huge. A quiver jolts through her, from her back-tossed head to her curling toes.

 

 

Eddie, still thrusting into her clutching, soaking core, glances left and right to find black ropes wound around each of her ankles. They hold her spread for him. For _them,_ for _Venom…_

 

 

“ _Fuck,”_ he chokes.

 

 

His pace stutters. His belly cramps. And, as his cock twitches and his balls clench and he hammers in his last, desperate, chasing thrusts, he feels something low in his body  _writhe_.

He can’t describe what it’s like to hear Venom’s soft purr of “ **Eddie”** as he sinks over the edge, pumping wet heat back along the length of his dick. He certainly doesn’t know how to feel about Anne kissing him, sloppy and ferocious, before flopping on the sweat-soaked mattress with a pat of his cheek.

 

 

“Good work, you two,” she says.

“ **Anne…”** Venom doesn’t seem capable of coherence yet. It said its species was asexual, and Eddie finds himself wondering whether this was its first time.

 

 

That thought’s adorable, in a weird sort of way. Eddie blames it on the orgasm.

 

 

Heaving great sucks of air, Eddie shuffles back, sliding free. Through the messed condom, he can see thick black veins bulging rhythmically up and down his cock. Can still feel it, feel _Venom,_ pulsing and oozing deep inside _._

The alien’s a shot of something intravenous, a drug diffused in his bloodstream. Part of him, inexorable, but also so-very-addictive. His.

 

 

Eddie hopes, in that moment, that this high doesn’t pass.

 

 

And indeed, for the next month, as he and Anne rediscover each other’s bodies (Anne kneads his inseam as they watch an old re-run of _Independence Day_ and suggests that they christen the new couch; Eddie pinches her ass as she walks past on her way to work, and although she refuses to be late she’s amenable to a five minute fumble on the kitchen table; Venom claws at Eddie’s belly, an avaricious churn, snarling and pleading for _more_ ) the high remains.

Until now.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Anne walks in. Her heels clickety-clack on the fancy pine parqueting. She stretches her blouse in the vain hope of smoothing out the crease.

She takes one look at Eddie (blank-eyed, slack-jawed, dripping with Orange Miscellaneous) and groans.

 

 

“Did you break my fiance, Venom?”

 

 

Venom worms out of Eddie’s shoulder. Somehow, despite being a freaky alien hagfish, it manages to look sheepish. “ **Morning, Annie. Not intentional.”**

“Hm. You two had better clean that up, okay? I needed to be on the tram five minutes ago.”

“ **Roger, Annie.”**

 

 

Anne swipes a nutri-grain bar from the counter and flays it in one efficient rip-and-twist. She drops a kiss on Eddie’s unresponsive cheek, then another on Venom’s. It makes a sound that’s worryingly similar to Mr Belvedere’s purrs.

“Behave,” she tells them, mock-serious. Then she’s gone with a wink and a whirl of lemony shampoo. The door creaks shut, latch turning.

 

 

Orange Miscellaneous drips from Eddie’s chin. Venom does him the favor of shutting their mouth.

_**Thought reporters never forgot how to speak?** _

 

 

Eddie gurgles something inarticulate. His mind is a blizzard of conflicting wants, fears, lusts, shames, loves. All those hues on the human emotional spectrum that don’t make sense when you observe them from a distance. The ones you have to squirm deep to truly _feel._

Venom suspects it has gone deeper than any Klyntar before. When it peels Eddie’s mind open, exposing him to the rawest fibers of his being, it sees everything his odd, brave, wonderful little host thinks - whether or not Eddie’s ready to admit it to himself.

 

 

 ** _I see_ , **it says.

 

 

It rights the empty orange-stained glass, then transforms Eddie’s arm into a twelve-foot tentacle and nabs the cleaning cloth from beneath the kitchen sink.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: Eddie Brock is a cis white guy who thinks he's straight. He doesn't always say The Right Thing. He will get better over the course of this fic, but he's not going to specifically apologize for his thoughts, because by the time he's improved his views, he'll have forgotten about them. If this bothers you, please discontinue reading here.**

Eddie waits, after that. He waits, and he waits, and he waits.

 

 

Next time Venom brings it up, he tells himself. Next time, he handles this _sensibly_. Like an adult. He won’t let Venom play its malicious mind-games. Won’t let it claim it knows Eddie better than he knows himself.

It might be _in_ his head, but it’s not _him._ That’s got to count for something.

And so, Eddie decides, he will tell his symbiote that he wants to screw _his fiancée_ , not some sapient alien _Slither_ knock-off from a solar system a few side-shuffles to the left. He’s happy for Venom to hitch a lift in his body – even to hijack his sensory net and ride the bow-wave of his orgasms like he’s pirating cable. Plus, their symbiosis makes it a lot easier to take a punch in the face, which is something of an inevitability in Eddie's line of work.

 

 

But to _actively fuck Venom_?

 

 

Pass. Eddie Brock’s a regular straight-laced, straight-edged dude. He has no desires to do the horizontal conga with anyone who isn’t one hundred percent, bona-fide lady _._ Nada. Zilch. Not a single fantasy buried in his subconscious, no siree. And if Venom would only start nagging, Eddie could tell them to their freaky jurassic face.

There is one flaw in this plan. Namely, Venom doesn’t bring it up.

 

 

Eddie grinds his teeth.

 

 

He takes on a new story and does his best to go about life as normal. He kisses Anne goodbye next morning, spoons Mr Belvedere’s stinky fishy jelly into his bowl and scoops his stinky fishy poop from the litter tray (because, as Anne says, if he can work from home, he can do the chores. Plus, Venom can reach all the high corners, which makes dusting a doddle.)

But beneath the surface, Eddie’s bubbling.

 

 

How dare Venom even bring this up? How dare it disrupt this thing they’ve got going, this comfortable pattern of regular tentacular missionary sex into which Eddie, Anne and it have settled?

And how dare it put that image in his head! The image of that _thing_ from the forest, that terrifying, insane, mind-bogglingly beautiful creature that loped towards him out of the trees, mouth painted bright with blood, before pulling Eddie to it in a searing kiss that fed into him, on and on and on, until he was overflowing with it, until Venom was all he breathed, all he tasted, all he knew…

 

 

Somewhere inside him, Venom twitches. It feels, Eddie can’t help but think, rather smug.

 

 

There’s something particularly infuriating at not being able to flip a bird at the person you’re mad at without also swearing at yourself.

 

 

Eddie switches on his laptop, waiting for the buzz as it boots. Anne’s has accompanied her to work, new password and all.

He has research to do. He can’t let Venom distract him.

 

 

_**Not even if you like it?** _

_Not now._

 

 

That won’t stop Venom pestering, of course. Eddie takes matters into his own hands. He stomps it down, deep down, flattening the symbiote as far into his subconscious as he can manage. Far enough that when Mr Belvedere saunters up to him and winds between his legs, Eddie can attempt to pet him, receive a clawing for his troubles, and think _little shit_ rather than _lunch._

“Cletus Kassidy,” he says out loud. “That’s so not a serial killer’s name. That’s the yokel from _The Simpsons._ ”

 

 

Venom’s too far away to chuckle. Still radiating smugness, of course, but that’s a given.

 

 

It strikes Eddie, then, that if he _really_ put his mind to it, he could do this the whole time. He’s got the will for it. This bond of theirs, it’s more reciprocal than that between Riot and their hosts: where the weak-willed succumbed in seconds and the strong, those like Drake, eroded more slowly, until they’d willingly defy everything they strove for, destroy humanity rather than save it.

Really, thinks Eddie, if he were the morally upstanding guy he likes to think he is, he would keep Venom shut away. That would be safest, for him and for Anne. Definitely for Mr Belvedere.

 

 

The thought upsets him on a visceral level.

 

 

Eddie releases his stranglehold casually, like it isn't a big deal. Venom floods back, a river in spate, gushing into every crevice of his mind. Every secret is laid bare, every hidden shame. Nothing hidden. Together again.

Eddie’s both unnerved and elated by how _right_ it feels.

 

 

 _ **Knew you’d miss me,**_ is the first thing it says.

“Punk.” But he’s smiling, just a little.

 

 

That fades as he skims the description beneath the video clip attached to the report. “Huh. That’s not good.”

Venom detaches its head from its favorite spot on Eddie’s shoulder, so they can squint at the screen side by side. “ **You don’t think…”**

“It’s possible.”

 

 

Eddie hits play, and the carnage begins.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

They eat tater-tots for lunch. Eddie needs ‘em, after that. Plus, thanks to his buddy, he no longer has to worry about his waistline. It’s all junk-food, all the time.

Anne, who pours as much effort into maintaining her hourglass figure as every other aspect of her life, is horrendously jealous. Eddie’s never known someone to passively aggressively munch lettuce before, but he finds it pretty fucking amusing.

 

 

He’s not thinking about Anne right now.

 

 

The laptop sits on the table a few paces away. Its screen is blank. Eddie doesn’t need to see the footage to remember it. It replays in his mind’s eye, an endless reel, inescapable, over and over again.

 _Do we look that monstrous,_ he wonders? No matter Anne ran from him, at first.

 

 

Venom congeals into existence. **“There were four of us on that shuttle,”** it says. Its voice has a certain grimness to it, one Eddie last remembers hearing when Venom was waxing lyrical about Riot’s prowess before the showdown on the LIFE rocket. He nods.

“Mm-hm.”

“ **Riot died in the crash. Asp suffocated after chewing through a mismatched host. And the fourth…”**

 

 

Eddie shuffles higher on the sofa. He wipes crumbs of deep-fried potato off his shirt. “A mismatched host. Doctor Skirth, you mean?”

Venom scoffs. “ **You can’t expect me to memorize the names of** _ **all**_ **you meat-bags.”**

“Just the important ones.”

“ **You mean, the ones you feel guilt over?”** Venom can’t tut; its tongue is too large for that level of fine manoeuvring. Still, it does its best. “ **Eddie, Eddie. Humans are exceptionally good at two things.”**

 

 

Eddie shovels his next greasy handful into his mouth. “Lemme guess,” he mutters as he chews, hunched over the bag. “Breeding and dying.”

“ **Fair point.** _ **Three**_ **things.”** When he reaches for seconds, black webs ooze from his palm. The tots stick to them like flies on glue-paper, which isn’t the most appetizing image, but hell. Eddie’s stomach growls; he obligingly opens his mouth. “ **Dying, breeding, and making tasty stuff. But dying’s still up there.”**

A loud hiss from the windowsill. Eddie carefully pincers his last tot between his teeth. He turns to find a grinning nightmare hovering over Mr Belvedere, attached to his shoulder by a long, inky thread.

“ **Though no tater-tot can compare to fresh meat …”**

 

 

Hell.

 

 

Eddie twists at the waist. Bad decision. The bag of tots slides off his lap.

It hits the floor and splits down the middle, lumps of potato gambolling over their nice clean carpet. Eddie can’t worry about them now. While Anne may like a spick and span house, he’d wager she cares more about her stupid cat.

 

 

He grabs the tendril. It feels oily, like it ought to leave a snail-trail on his skin.

“Dude! House pets are off-limits. How many times?”

 

 

Venom allows itself to be reeled in, though it slathers in a way that’s even grosser than usual. Mr Belvedere spits feline fury, and Venom cackles to itself, actually _cackles,_ like a freaking _movie villain,_ and how the _hell_ is Eddie _attracted_ to this…?

 

 

Venom’s head spins one-eighty. Huge white eyes stare straight at Eddie.

 

 

Eddie drops the tentacle. His palms are perfectly clean, not a streak of slime in sight. They sweat enough to make up for it.

Mr Belvedere, three times his usual size, sends one last, vindictive hiss at the both of them. He turns, tail lashing, and flees for the safety of the bathroom.

 

 

Eddie wishes he could do the same.

 

 

There’s no escape from this. No escape from _Venom._ And Venom knows it, which means Venom _also_ knows how that thought isn’t nearly so scary as it should be, and that Eddie is stupidly, ridiculously aware of his cock, resting against the rough seam of his lazy-day jeans, fatter by the second.

 

 

“Fuck,” croaks Eddie.

“ **Gladly.”**

“ _Hell.”_

 

 

The pulse of _hunger_ in Eddie’s mind should concern him, especially considering poor Mr Belvedere’s near-fate. It doesn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

 

“ **You’re picturing my tongue,”** says Venom, with far too much glee. “ **My tongue on your cock.”**

 

 

Eddie shuts his eyes.

Think of Cletus, he tells himself. Think _only_ of Cletus. Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dollars.

Think of that spray of blood as he whipped around in a circle, a familiar tentacle lashing out of his arm and rending open the throats of the ten armed guards sent to apprehend him. The danger, the thought that there’s _another one_ out there, a _dangerous_ one…

 

 

“ **I can be dangerous.”** Venom sounds horrendously close. Eddie will find it hovering _right there_ if he opens his eyes, near enough to re-enact their kiss. “ **Just not to the people we love.”**

Eddie licks his dry lips. He keeps his eyes shut, for now. “What about Mr Belvedere?”

“ **You don’t love that cat.”**

“Don’t tell Anne. She made it clear on our first date that if it came down to me or him, he wins.”

A low snigger. “ **How can he win if we are digesting him?”**

“You’re a terrible person.”

“ **No.** _ **We**_ **are.”** Venom’s words break over his face. Its mouth stinks of metal and something chemical, like burning plastic. “ **I would ask if you want me to lick your cock, Eddie, but I think we both know the answer.”**

 

 

“Please,” Eddie whimpers. He resists the urge to cover his face, dick pulsing in time with the race of his heart. How much of what fills his swelling prick is blood? How much of it is Venom? “Don’t say stuff like that out loud.”

“ **Why? We both enjoy it.”**

“O-Okay, buddy. Seems we’re forgetting the first rule of fuckery, which is…”

“ **Stop when you’re told to. But I’m already inside you, Eddie. I know what you want.”**

 

 

Evidently, another talk is in order. _W_ _anting_ isn't the same as _saying yes –_ at least, Eddie's fairly sure they’re different. Anne's au-fait with this whole #MeToo thing in the wake of Weinstein; Eddie mostly just nods sympathetically and prays he meets one of those sick fucks in a darkened alley so that head-biting can commence.

He should call a halt. Sit Venom down, cast a light on the murky waters of consent. But perhaps… Just perhaps, he can let it get him off first.

 

 

It's just really complex masturbation. Right?

 

 

Pressure on his inseam. Firm touches, kneading up his quads, so fucking close to where he needs it.

Eddie dares open one eye. His hand flies to his mouth, and he catches the knuckle and _bites._

 

It’s such a stupid, teenage-girly thing to do, but _hell,_ he is _not_ getting halfway to the finish just from watching Venom’s creepy tentacles massage his legs. He _refuses._ Even as its wicked grin dangles over his crotch, mere inches from the danger zone…

“ _Shit,_ ” he breathes.

Venom quivers. It looks a sludgier consistency than usual, like it’s too excited to hold a solid form.

 

 

Eddie realizes then that he’s not feeling _his own_ giddy eagerness. It’s _Venom’s._

 

 

“God,” he manages. The waves roll through him, black veins threading his skin. Eagerness and anticipation and _yes._ Fuck, he hasn't felt this horny since he was sixteen, beating one out in the bogs behind the gym. “You’re practically a virgin. How come you’re such a slut?”

“ **Wanna cum, Eddie. Wanna cum with you.”**

“Fuck. It’s like you’re begging me to fuck your mouth.”

" **I don’t** _ **beg**_ **.”**

 

 

Eddie bet it would though, if he really worked at it. A thrill shivers through him at that thought. It isn’t entirely his own.

 

 

“ **I’m in** _ **your**_ **head,”** Venom continues, quickly, like it wants Eddie to forget what just transpired. **“Your desires. You said it yourself.”**

“So am I wanting to suck _myself_ off? That's kinda confusing.” Venom keeps shtum, which means it’s as wise on the subject as he is. Eddie leaves the sexual identity-crisis for another day. “Look,” he says. “For the record, I’ve never given a dude a blowjob. I’ve never even _wanted_ to.”

Venom doesn’t have _eyebrows_ , per se. Still, it manages to raise them.

Eddie shakes his head. “That doesn’t count. Everyone got confused by Matt in eleventh grade when he showed up to soccer camp with long hair.”

The faux-brows climb higher.

Eddie does his damnedest not to squirm. His cock’s already at that point where it throbs like an overtensed muscle, responding to the raw, relentless _need_ being pushed into him by his alien tagalong.

“Six weeks with no girls!” he gasps. “And he had really delicate wrists!”

“ **Delicate** _ **wrists?**_ ”

“God _,_ would you shut up and suck my cock.”

 

 

Venom treats him to its usual batshit laugh, and does so.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

It is, predictably, awful.

Venom doesn’t know what it’s doing and Eddie certainly doesn’t. All he can offer in guidance is _more, please, we’re getting slobber on the couch,_ and _mind the teeth._

 

 

After five slippery, spittle-smeared, minutes, Venom pushes a thought into his head.

_**This is boring.** _

“Boring?”

 

 

That word doesn't spring to mind. The blowjob’s the messiest of his life (Venom can’t suck him properly without risking a wound that’d be very awkward to explain to Dan) but that doesn’t matter. Eddie’s still helplessly hard, just from watching that fat pink tongue snake up and down, those lidless white eyes sizing up his crotch like it’s another tater tot.

(Or, y’know, something a bit larger. A hotdog. Bratwurst. Eddie doesn’t like to brag.)

Anne always claims that the brain is the biggest sex organ. Right now, Eddie believes her. He fists the loose cover on the couch cushions, canting up, sliding through tight silky coils.

 

 

“Don’t you _dare_ stop.”

 

 

Venom keeps complaining – in his head, thankfully. Their mouth is otherwise occupied. _**It’s too much to concentrate on. If I’m focusing on not biting your cock off -**_

“ _Not_ a sexy image!”

_**\- How am I supposed to focus on what you’re feeling?** _

 

 

Eddie grinds his jaw. The tendons stand out in his bunching arms. His jeans gape open, the denim heavy with alien saliva. Yet another thing that shouldn’t be a turn-on.

“Sex,” he manages, catching Venom’s head and holding it in place, “is about reciprocation, buddy. Give _and_ take.”

_**I prefer to take it. Less effort.** _

 

 

Eddie can’t help it. He starts laughing.

 

 

_**What’s so funny?** _

Each time Eddie chortles, he rocks through the loops of Venom’s tongue. Venom might not have much in the way of _finesse,_ but damn, if it isn’t the perfect texture – slippery-soft, fleshy as a woman’s wet cunt. At his laughter, however, that tongue retracts, until it’s barely more than a brush, a tease, flicking across his dripping tip.

_**What, Eddie.** _

 

 

“You’re a _pillow princess,_ ” Eddie gasps. “The alien using my body as a host is secretly a slutty, practically-a-virgin pillow princess. Wait until I tell Anne. This is so fucking rich…”

_**Not being secretive.** _

Eddie _knows_ , that’s the worst thing about it. Who gave this loser alien the right to be cute?

 

 

Release trudges his way. It’s egged on by the occasional rush of endorphins that Venom manages to skim off the surface of his consciousness and fastball back at him. Won’t be anything spectacular, but hey. The end is in sight.

 _ **You know,**_ thinks Venom, _**if I take a ride in Anne, she can teach me how to give a good blowjob.**_

“If you take a ride with Anne,” Eddie counters, thrusting till his cock brushes teeth, “you’re gonna beg me to lick your cunt.”

 

 

The rush of lust catches him off guard.

 

 

Eddie’s stomach cramps. He crushes Venom's head to him and arches like a pulled bow _._ “Venom -”

 

 

_**Eddie!** _

 

 

Fuck, Venom's tongue, _Venom's tongue._ It swirls around his cock in a helter-skelter, dragging rough over his hairy balls. Those clench up at the attention, Eddie’s legs locking out. His foot finds the broken bag of tater tots.

 

 

_Crunch._

 

 

He’d better whip about with the vacuum later. Anne’ll have Choice Words if she finds any crumbs, and –

 

 

Oh fuck, oh fuck, _oh fuck._ Venom’s pulling his orgasm out of him, licking it up from balls to tip.

 

 

Eddie’s fucks hard. He forces his eyes from their roll. Worth it, so very worth it, to watch hot stripes burst over Venom’s bared fangs.

Venom jumps like Eddie squirted them with a water spritzer. Its tongue drips white, and it pulls a face that Eddie will find hee-frickin’-larious as soon as he can see straight.

 

 

He rolls his head around his neck. Every muscle sags loose, pleasantly steamrolled. “Suits you,” he slurs, gesturing to Venom’s varnish.

Venom laps the splatter from its teeth. _**Don’t get used to it.**_

Eddie’s hand still weighs on the back of its head. It has a strange, malleable texture. Like warm plasticine. Like it would squash if he squeezed.

 

 

He pulls, and Venom follows. They nuzzle his belly, as Mr Belvedere might do if he didn’t have it in his triangular little head that Eddie is the antichrist. The noise they make – guttural and gravelly – sounds suspiciously similar to a purr.

 _ **Yours.**_ Venom’s presses forwards, melding through Eddie’s shirt and into the stomach beyond. Entering him, making them one. Eddie’s breath quickens, though it’s nothing like arousal – that sense of fullness, of rightness, of _wholeness_ that comes with taking the symbiote back where it belongs. _**And you are mine, Eddie.**_

 

 

Eddie peels his parched tongue from his tonsils. “Sure,” he says.

 

 

Perhaps that’s the real reason he doesn’t want Venom to go in Annie. Because he’ll miss it so desperately while its gone.

 

 

 _ **Come back to you.**_ There’s that purr again. Velvety and leonine, like a big cat lolls on the back of their sofa, its muzzle an inch from Eddie’s ear. _**Always come back to you, Eddie. Promise**_ **.**

“Promise,” echoes Eddie.

He shuts his eyes, basking, soaking it in – before he remembers what’s also soaking into the couch and grumbles upright to fetch the bleach.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **To all you OT4 lovers, Dan arrives in the next chapter! Comments and kudos = updates.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Long time, no see! Warnings for: discussion of forced pregnancy, seen through an alien lens**

“Dan’s coming over,” Annie tells them as she strides in that evening, all cute pencil skirt and windswept hair. Her blouse is still creased, but she found a flouncy neckerchief thing to hide it. Eddie wants to take it off her with his teeth.

“Be nice,” she warns them. Then she sniffs the air, scrunches her nose in that rabbity way he loves and heads to crank open the window.

Eddie trundles after her, thumbs in pockets. “I’m always nice,” he says.

“I’m not talking to you. You’re a peach.”

With heels on she’s a solid inch taller than him. Eddie wonders whether he should like that as much as he does. He flushes when she bends to kiss him.

“ **I’m a peach too, Annie.”**

“Sure you are,” Anne tells Venom, pulling back. “Just not to my ex.” Then, glancing at the empty sill: “Where’s my cat?”

“I still don’t know why we invite your ex around for dinner every week,” Eddie complains. He catches her, cages her hips in his hands. “Doesn’t that defeat the point of him being an ex?”

“Dan’s _nice._ You like him, I like him. He’s a decent person, a normal person, and – no offence to any eavesdropping symbiotes – we could use a little more _normal_ in our lives.”

“ **Offence taken. I don’t like him.”**

Venom nicks Eddie’s mouth, swooping in before he has the chance to block him. To her credit, Anne doesn’t cringe from the fangs hovering inches from her jugular – although her nose scrunches again, her whole face screwing towards its centerpoint.

“Venom, do you ever brush your teeth? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. The point is, you chose this loser as your host.” She pats Eddie twice on the chest. “We’ve already established that you have terrible taste in men.”

“ **Pot, kettle.”**

“Touché.”

Eddie deflates. "Loser? Two against one, much?"

“You know we love you.” Anne pecks his cheek, and Venom behaves itself and doesn’t lick her. All in all, it’s a Hallmark moment for everybody.

"Come on," she says, breaking from Eddie. She slips off her stilettos to rub the painful arches of her feet. "Dan's due in at eight. Gives us an hour to get it all cooked."

She walks right past the tater tot crime scene (which, by now, has been thoroughly bleached, swabbed, air-freshened and vacuumed into submission). Venom and Eddie share a mental high-five.

 _We should be clean-up men for the mafia,_ Eddie thinks.

_**Do we get to eat more heads in that line of work?** _

_Possibly._

_**Do we get to make pyramids out of the decapitated corpses?** _

Eddie rubs the stubble on his upper lip, hiding his smirk. _Why do your artistic inclinations only ever come out when we're surrounded by dead bodies?_

_**I don't hear a no.** _

_Eating heads: a sad occasional necessity. Pyramid-construction: a frivolity._

_**So only if we have time?** _

_Only if you've been good._ Eddie recalls the days where devouring someone's skull, crunch-crunch gone, brain-jelly slithering down his throat, would make him nauseous rather than think 'there we go again'. _Or if they're very, very bad._

"Mr Belvedere! There you are." Anne holds out her arms. A fuzzy torpedo launches from the bathroom and into her embrace. Manipulative shit that he is, Mr Belvedere lets her rock him like a baby and scritch beneath his chin, glaring daggers at Eddie the whole while.

"Were they being mean to you? Were they bullying you? Who’s a poor lil’ kitty, hm?"

 **"He started it,"** says Venom, which is a patent lie.

Anne ignores them, turning her back. "Does my brave lil' man need a cuddle?"

"Yes," tries Eddie, but Anne only shoots him a glare.

"I couldn’t more obviously have been talking to the cat. Honestly, Eddie. I’m disappointed. I expect this sort of behaviour from Venom."

Venom drapes itself around Eddie’s neck in boa-like imitation of Mr Belvedere, who pointedly starts grooming his bottom. **"You see, Eddie? Anne accepts my true nature. She would let me build a pyramid out of corpses."**

"Venom," Anne continues, as if she doesn’t hear, "is like a toddler who pulls tails just to see what will happen."

Venom wilts. **"Oh. Can we still..."**

"If I see a single pyramid in my nice, clean, upmarket neighbourhood, I will activate the surround-sound system and blast you out of my fiancé for good."

Venom doesn't have a snappy response. It sinks slowly back into Eddie, feeding him its fear.

Eddie shifts from foot to foot. Eventually, he decides that everyone should cultivate a healthy trepidation of Anne, and that Venom had to learn at some point that their soon-to-be-wife is not to be fucked with. Really, this is a win.

He thumbs over his shoulder at the kitchen. "Want us to start chopping veg? Stir-fry, right?"

"Chicken fillets are in the fridge. Don't let Venom eat too many raw. If you contract salmonella, Dan’ll have to nurse you."

Venom doesn't reply.

"It says it'll restrain itself," Eddie lies.

 

* * *

 

 

Venom does. It remains subdued as they dice the spring onions, but when Eddie painstakingly begins topping and tailing the sweet pepper bells, it makes itself known with a snort of disdain.

Eddie’s grin curls across his face. _Finally_.

"Think you can do better?" he asks.

The challenge is all Venom needs. Anne trots back some time later, having changed into her home-clothes (a pair of tracksuit bottoms, a vest top and one of Eddie's shirts – and _yes_ , he is painfully, rawly aware that she wouldn't let herself be seen in casual-wear by anyone she didn't love, Dan included).

By now, seven black tendrils have stolen the rest of the knives from the rack. They make short work of ginger, bell peppers, mushrooms and pineapple (because Eddie's a heathen who'll add it to any food, and Anne loves him too much to say no).

 **"Anne,"** says Venom. Apparently, all is forgiven. **"We're having a competition. Eddie's losing."**

"I only have one knife!"

**"You have two hands."**

"I can't dual-wield kitchenware. Anyway, I'm doing the meat, as you can't be trusted. Meat's harder to cut. Right, Anne?"

Anne eyes their respective piles. Venom's finally got his pyramid, and seems very proud of it too. As it's made from precisely-sliced stripes of vegetable matter, Anne can't complain.

"Booby prize," she tells Eddie, charitably.

He leers. “Yours?”

“Tonight.”

“ **You’re welcome to them. You mammalians and your jiggly bits.”**

“Your natural form is black silly-putty,” Anne tells it, which she probably thinks is insulting. She nods to their mountain. “This is a lot."

"We'll finish it," say Venom and Eddie in perfect synch.

"I’m not worried about leftovers, I’m worried about fitting it in the wok. Grab us another frying pan, will you?”

They do so. Most of the time, convenience food is the Weying-Brock family manna. However, on this night, Dan's night, Anne always insists they cook from scratch.

Eddie doesn't know how to feel about that.

 _ **Like we want to eat him,**_ Venom proposes, in the privacy of Eddie's head. They’re rummaging through the cupboard; Eddie has to duck behind the open door, so Anne doesn’t catch him smirking.

_Pass. He's all lean and muscular and chiselled and shit. Too chewy._

_**Solution: we swallow him whole.** _

_No. Anne likes him. Hell, I like him._

It's hard not to, when you’re faced with that much earnest _goodness._ Dan was better to Anne than Eddie ever was, and he'll always resent him for it – but, at the same times, it means he can't outright _hate_ the guy.

_**Speak for yourself.** _

Eddie sighs. He locates the frying pan and hands it up, utilising one of Venom’s tentacles to hold back a minor colander cascade. _You're just mad because he nearly killed you._

_**Of course I am. And you should be too. Think about how boring your life would be without me.** _

Eddie supposes it makes a fair point.

 

* * *

 

 

Dan’s punctual. That’s another of those things Eddie’s learned about him. Dan is always on time.

And Dan’s eyes crinkle easily into a smile, and Dan smells real good, when he offers his hand to Eddie and grips it, warm and trusting (like Venom couldn’t rip his arm from his socket and wear it as a morbid scarf).

_**Don’t tempt us.** _

_You’re despicable._

_**You thought it.** _

“Eddie,” says Dan. He sounds genuinely happy to see him. “You look fighting fit. Liver holding up?”

“Save playing doctor for later,” Anne tells him. She brandishes serving spatulas at the wok.

Meanwhile, Venom grumbles that of _course_ Eddie’s liver’s doing fine; how could Dan even _ask_ such a thing. Eddie dispatches two firm pumps to Dan’s hand, trying to hit that perfect application of pressure that says _nice to see you_ and _hands off my fiancée_ without any words needing to get involved.

“Haven’t turned yellow yet,” is his response.

“Glad to hear it, glad to hear it. Here.” Dan thrusts a bottle of something into Eddie’s hands that’s far too classy for stir-fry night with the ex. “I thought you might like this one.”

 _Shouldn’t he be giving this to Anne?_ Eddie thinks, as Dan begins earnestly talking about how he _knows_ wine tasting is all bullshit, but this one really _does_ have those elusive nutty overtones that everyone keeps yakking on about. _If she’s the one being romanced?_

No, wait. That’s silly. Anne doesn’t _need_ to be romanced; she’s already fallen for Dan once.

_**She loves us, Eddie.** _

Venom sounds like a kid wanting reassurance. Eddie sighs. He takes the bottle to the counter and starts the hunt for a corkscrew, while Anne starts doling portions onto plates.

_It’s not that simple. Love’s more complicated than that._

Anne and Dan.

Eddie and Annie.

Jealousy is stupid. Anne is a smart, strong, stiletto-sharp lawyer who can make her own damn decisions and stick by them too. And she chose Eddie. She wouldn’t sleep with Dan, he knows that. And if she was tempted, she’d tell him first.

As Anne laughs at something intolerably witty that Dan just came out with and drops a chunk of chicken on the floor, Eddie imagines that conversation. He wonders what he’d say.

Anne picks up the chicken. “Mr Belvedere’ll have that.”

Eddie has to mentally wrestle Venom from snatching it out her hand. When he looks up, Dan’s grinning at Anne like she’s just done the cutest thing in all existence. He notices Eddie watching, and turns to him.

The expression on his face doesn’t change.

 _ **Does he have slender wrists?**_ murmurs Venom’s voice in Eddie’s head.

Eddie doesn’t respond. He grabs the corkscrew and takes the bottle into the corner for some manly wrestling, and does his best to put all thoughts of Dan and Dan’s wrists out of his head.

 

* * *

 

 

Their portions are divided up _a la_ Goldilocks. There’s Anne, the baby, who’s ‘watching her figure’ (which on ex-night, is short-hand for ‘eat half a portion at dinner then gobble a tub of Ben and Jerries in front of the TV later and tell myself it’s okay). Dan takes mummy’s portion – he has that disgusting, easy athleticism about him that speaks of casual gym membership and a good metabolism.

Then there’s Eddie. Papa bear. Stuffing his gob with beansprouts like they’re due a famine.

“So,” Dan says, slathering his noodles in soy. “How’s investigative journalism going?”

“Pretty well.”

“Any good stories?”

Eddie wants to tell him, all of a sudden. Rub it in his smug, friendly, infuriatingly handsome doctorly face. A breadwinner is the last thing Anne needs – even working pro-bono, she can rake in more a week than Eddie takes home most months. Dammit though, Eddie’s job is _important._ Maybe not as important as being a lah-di-dah life-saving _doctor_ , but he’s still doing a pretty fucking vital favour to society, baring dirty corporate truths to the light.

_**Can we eat him?** _

Eddie ignores them. “Found something interesting today,” he says, nonchalantly spearing one of the pineapple pieces Anne pushed to the side of her plate. She kicks him under the table, but doesn’t protest. “Regarding the symbiotes. Thought it was just rumours, y’know? But there’s footage.”

“That’s great.” Dan looks like he means it, that’s the worst thing. “It’s genuine?”

Eddie doesn’t know, but like hell will he let on. “This is my field; I know a fake video when I see one.”

“Eddie,” says Anne. It’s all she has to. Eddie gets to the point.

“It was a man,” he says. “A serial killer. Cletus-something.”

“Like on the Simpsons?” ask Anne and Dan. Then turn to each other and giggle. Eddie doesn’t know if he wants to join in or scream.

 _**Can we eat him** _ **now?**

“Yeah, like on the Simpsons. He recently escaped from a maximum-security unit. I got a tip-off that the government had moved into the LIFE foundation, confiscated all the research –“

“That’s to be expected, surely?” asks Dan. He’s not _trying_ to pick holes in Eddie’s story. Hell, if Anne was asking these questions, Eddie’d be all too happy to bounce off them. He thrives on a good debate. But Dan… It’s like every word out of his mouth strokes Eddie in the wrong direction.

_**How about now?** _

_Maybe later._

“We expected them to _confiscate_ it. We just didn’t expect them to _use_ it.” Eddie cleared his throat. “Cletus Kassidy was apprehended with aid of a high-force sonar beam in the 180kHZ range.”

Anne held up a hand. A smear of sweet’n’sour clung to her chin. “You’re not saying…?”

“I _am_ saying. We don’t know yet _how_ he got the symbiote – or much about it, for that matter –“

Venom bulges out of Eddie’s shoulder. No warning. Dan jumps in his seat and Mr Belvedere springs from his cosy perch on the window sill, fur puffed like he bit an electric cable.

“ **I do,”** it says.

Dan relaxes gradually, one hand pressed to his chest. “Hi, Venom,” he says.

“ **I’ve been here all along.”**

“Ah – of course. Um, you look well.”

“ **I’ve figured out how to make Eddie crave the correct proportion of living protein. I’m not eating his organs anymore.”**

“Good to know?”

“ **No need to make me to possess a chihuahua again.”**

Dan shrinks against his chair. “Still holding a grudge, are we?”

“Eddie,” says Anne, far too brightly for the situation at hand. “Would you pass the pepper?”

“And you call _me_ a heathen for putting pineapple with everything. Pepper on a stir fry, woman? Are you mad?” Then, because Venom’s studying Dan with that particularly carnivorous grin, the one they’re only supposed to direct at lobsters, bad guys, and Mr Belvedere – “Don’t worry, Dan. It can’t kill you unless I give it the say so.”

“ **You wanna bet?”**

Eddie rolls his eyes. He’s the dominant part of this symbiosis. He and Venom both know that if he slams on the brakes, Venom stops.

Most of the time.

“How about we get back to the part where you’re friends with this symbiote? Which you neglected to tell me earlier.”

“ **I was going to,”** grumbles Venom, **“but then you wanted a blowjob.”**

Dan chokes on his chicken.

Anne shoots Eddie an evil look – like this is his fault! – and refills his water glass. “Remember that discussion we had about dinner-appropriate conversation, Venom?”

“ **No?”**

“That’s because we’re having it now.”

Eddie wishes he could spontaneously combust. His cheeks certainly feel hot enough.

 _Ix-nay on the ex-say, buddy,_ he thinks, staring furiously at his high-heaped plate.

_**Why? I can feel your shame – but I certainly don’t understand it.** _

_Just… just shut up and tell me about this new symbiote. We’ll discuss this later._

I.e.: when Dan’s not coughing into his napkin.

Venom sighs like they’re doing Eddie a favor. **“The symbiote is Carnage. The fourth of our number, and the only survivor beside myself.”**

Eddie nods, willing down his flush. “Right! Great. That’s a start. What can you tell us about them?”

“ **Simple. It is the youngest of our number, its thirst for human blood is unparalleled, and…”** A slight pause. Eddie feels the familiar skim of a foreign consciousness through his thoughts. Whatever Venom’s about to say, it wants to gauge what his reaction might be first.

The pause drags a little longer. That’s not good.

“Out with it,” says Anne, having assured herself Dan doesn’t need a Heimlich.

Venom sighs in Eddie’s head. **“It is my spawn,”** it says.

Eddie forgets how to think.

“Spawn?” he hears Dan ask hoarsely, through the static in his ears. “You mean…”

“ **I birthed it.”**

Anne’s mouth dangles open. She shuts it and opens it a few more times before words accompany the motions. “Y-you can do that?”

“ **Genderless alien goo. We have to reproduce somehow.”**

“They’re your _child?_ ”

Venom shrugs like it means nothing. But it’s inside Eddie and Eddie’s inside it. He knows otherwise. **“Yes, it is. And Riot made me do it.”**

Eddie finds his voice at that. “Riot _made_ you?” Heat rises in his chest, fills his clenching fists. No one makes Venom do anything. Except himself, of course.

“ **You make it sound worse than it is. Riot was a badass, but it wasn’t all brawn.”** Eddie despises how nostalgic it sounds. Like Riot wasn’t an evil fuck who wanted to make all of humanity lunch meat.

_**Evil is subjective, Eddie.** _

“Whatever,” says Eddie out loud. “Let’s revisit how Riot forced you to have kids again?”

_**Can we not talk about this in front of Dan?** _

Oh, they’re not playing that card. _You brought it up!_ Plus, it embarrassed him earlier, with that blowjob line. Fair, thinks Eddie, filling his mouth with a crunchy broccoli sprig, is fair.

Venom shakes its head, tongue retracting behind its teeth. It doesn’t argue, though Eddie senses its reluctance, dribbling miserably through his guts. **“While we waited on that asteroid, one of our initial crew challenged Riot’s authority.”**

“Let me guess,” said Anne, following the story with interest and no little horror. She meets Eddie’s eyes, and he knows they’re both as not-okay with this new information as each other. This is _their_ symbiote, after all. “It didn’t go well.”

“ **Would you call ‘Riot devouring it’ well?”**

“No. No, I would not.”

“ **Then no, it didn’t go well.”** Venom flows a little further from Eddie. It doesn’t look at him. It’s a wordless dismissal of this sudden, stupid urge that’s brewing inside him, the need to hold it close like he did this afternoon. Cuddle it on his lap and pretend he can keep this stupid loser of an alien safe.

“ **Riot was aware that initiating the invasion with only three was risky,”** continues Venom, like it can’t read the thoughts Eddie’s projecting into his head. **“It did not underestimate your race. The logical option was to bud.”**

“Alright, Mr Spock,” says Eddie, putting down his fork. “If Riot wanted kids so badly, why not make them themselves – itself?”

Venom sinks, their head levitating a little lower than Eddie’s own. _**Not in front of Dan…**_

 _Talk._ The force of his mental command shocks even himself. Venom withers, shrinking until their head is no larger than the pepper pot.

“ **Budding makes us vulnerable,”** it says. It speaks so softly that if it weren’t for the way Dan and Anne glanced at one another, Eddie might’ve thought it was only in his head.

“What does that mean?” asks Anne. She uses her Quiet Voice, the one she saves for clients who’ve been wronged – or Eddie after the more intense sex games, the ones where she wraps her necktie around his throat and has him call her _ma’am_. Gentle, emollient. Like everything’s gonna be okay.

Venom bristles. **“Riot had just overcome a coup. Vulnerability was the last thing it wanted. I had to demonstrate my loyalty –“**

“Giving birth is a strange way to do that,” says Dan mildly.

“ **Humans!”** Venom scoffs like the word leaves a bad taste in its mouth. **“I don’t expect you to understand. Your younglings are pathetic** _ **.”**_

“Cute,” Anne corrects. “Cute is the word you’re looking for.”

“ **I find nothing ‘cute’ about wiggly pink worms that do nothing but make painful noises and daub themselves with their own faeces.”** Venom is still a miniature version of its usual apparition, but it raises its oily black chin. **“** _ **Our**_ **spawn are far better-behaved.”**

“If we excuse all the murder,” Eddie mutters.

“ **Cultural differences.”**

Dan shakes his head. “You don’t seem particularly adverse to humanity.”

Venom’s grin splits its makeshift head in two. Out snakes that tongue, buffing both sets of needle-sharp fangs. **“Only certain members.”**

“I think what Dan’s _trying_ to say,” starts Anne, as Dan scopes his exits, glancing at the window and the door like he’s debating which he’s most likely to reach in a crisis and whether it’d be worth the three-storey drop, “is how come your child turned out a murderous asshole, while you are –“

“ **The awesome alien warrior you’ve all come to know and love?”**

“-Slightly less of a murderous asshole. You raised them – it – right?”

Eddie expects another pithy comeback, a snap of Venom’s teeth, perhaps a reminder that, until it took his body for a ride, it had been grudgingly willing to roll with Riot’s plan. That’s not what he gets.

Venom recoils. All the way, an eel-like ridge of blackness slithering up Eddie’s arm and into his core, where it interweaves itself with his organs as tightly as it can without causing damage. _**Not talking about this,**_ it whispers. _**Tell them, Eddie.**_

Eddie has no idea what to make of this. He can feel Venom, like he always can, but he can’t feel anything _from_ it. No emotion. No anger, or amusement at Dan’s gormless expression, or vague carnivorous interest in the cat. Venom has shut off from Eddie completely.

He didn’t know it could do that.

Anne and Dan are still staring. Eddie cracks his dry mouth open.

“Sorry, guys. Conversation’s over.”

They finish their meal in silence. Eddie’s still hungry, because he’s always hungry nowadays – reminds him of being a kid, when he could plough through two bowls of muesli, one of mac’n’cheese, a large pizza and a Candy King pot in the space of a day. But somehow, as he pushes his beautifully seared-off pineapple chunks through the gloopy orange sauce, he finds that he’s lost his appetite.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **It's been a while! Frankly, I've migrated far away from this fandom - it doesn't have enough content that's to my tastes, busy adult life, etc. This fic probably won't be finished, but hiatuses may be broken with sporadic chapters, written for my own amusement, whenever I rewatch Venom. Also, juuuuuust to say, I'm a nonbinary person who WAS tentatively experimenting with it/itself pronouns when this fic was first written, though I'm less interested in them now. I'd really appreciate people not getting at me for Venom's pronoun choice! x**

**Author's Note:**

> **This fic will contain rampant switching, I warn you now! Comments and kudos = updates. Do feel free to come find me on tumblr - I'm write-like-an-american, or ask-a-ravager.**


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